Journalistic Skills in the Digitalized Newsroom
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
DOCUMENT RESUME ED 411 548 CS 216 018 AUTHOR Christopher, L. Carol TITLE Journalistic Skills in the Digitalized Newsroom. PUB DATE 1997-05-00 NOTE 26p.; Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association (Montreal, Quebec, Canada, May 22-26, 1997). PUB TYPE Information Analyses (070) Opinion Papers (120) Speeches /Meeting Papers (150) EDRS PRICE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Computer Mediated Communication; Editing; *Journalism; Labor Problems; *Newspapers; *Organizational Change; *Technological Advancement; *Work Environment IDENTIFIERS Pagination; Technological Demands; *Technology Integration ABSTRACT This paper explores three different implementations of technology in newsrooms: electronic editing, pagination, and computer-assisted reporting. Also examined are the ways in which newspapers are using newsroom technology both to gain greater control over the content and appearance of the newspaper and to gain greater control over the labor process of workers in the interest of the accumulation of capital. It concludes with an examination of new forms of work organization in the newsroom, linking considerations of the social construction of reality by major media corporations with questions raised by labor process analysts, especially H. Braverman, H. Shaiken, and S. Zuboff. Noting that labor process analysts challenge the social agreements between management and labor, the paper points out that these analysts question which work, rights, and powers accrue to owners/managers, and which to labor. A concern among labor process analysts is that while the technological demands of work require greater education, training, intelligence, and mental effort, workers and society find conditions of industrial and office labor increasingly unstable, unsatisfactory, and characterized by mindlessness, bureaucratization, and alienation. The paper contends, for example, that journalism schools are under increasing pressure to ensure that graduates have adequate technical skills by the time they enter the newsroom--unless students are required to take more courses, rookie journalists may come to newsrooms with less knowledge of traditional skills and practices. (Contains 25 references.) (NKA) ******************************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ******************************************************************************** Journalistic skills in the digitalized newsroom ICA, Montreal, May, 1997 L. Carol Christopher Department of Communication University of California, San Diego [email protected] 888 Vermont St. # 212 Oakland, CA 94610 (510) 444-7841 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS EDUC TIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY CENTER (ERIC) his document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)." 2 BEST COPY AVAILABLE L. Carol Christopher 2 Journalistic skills in the digitalized newsroom Technological change takes place in both a social and a historical context, existing both internal and external to the organization; each context is embedded with interests, beliefs, and values about social status, the nature of meaningful work, and what problems technology can or should solve (Thomas, 1994, p. 4). Technology makes journalistic work more abstract in numerous ways and thus changes the nature of journalistic skill: The first-hand sentiencethe sounds and sights and smells of the production of the printed word and, increasingly, human-interaction as a central-facet of journalists' work are increasingly displaced by electronic and computerized texts and interactions. Technology serves as a means of rationalizing journalistic work in a-way that removes, erodes, or creates opportunities for communicative and coordinative activities in the newsroom, and it also presents opportunities for extending old skills and creating new ones._ Increasingly, communication theorists have begun to focus on the socially constructed nature of reality, and to examine the workplace as a potential site of conflict over different interests in decisions regarding products, our culture, and our environment (see, for example, Deetz & Mumby, 1990). Computer technologies are not neutral: they have inherent characteristics that constrain their potential- in the workplace, since much of what has driven the design, development, and deployment of workplace technology is that it can be controlled more easily, and is more subject to rational principles, than humans. Machines do not tire or object to repetition or rationalized activities as do humans, and are more consistently capable of precision, thus rendering production processes more predictable, and creating a more secure environment for capital investment and profit. Newspapers are a social construction of realitya representation of what's important to know, and by extension, what isn'twhich occurs as journalists jointly participate in the selection, framing, L. Carol Christopher 3 and presentation of events and ideas which then become The News. But this construction is also influenced by decisions and processes external to the newsroomincluding decisions about labor, about profit, about technology. This paper explores three different implementations of technology in newsrooms: electronic editing, pagination, and computer-assisted reporting, as a means for examining the ways in which newspapers are using newsroom technology both to gain greater control over the content and appearance of the newspaper, but also to gain greater control over the labor process of workers in the interest of the accumulation of capital. It concludes with an examination of new forms of work organization in the newsroom. In doing so, it links considerations of the social-construction of reality by major media corporations with questions raised by labor process analysts, especially Braverman, Shaiken, and Zuboff. Labor process analysts challenge the social agreements between management and labor, which they see as resting on yet another social construction of reality a set of practices, a discourse, a historical process. They question which work, rights and powers accrue to owners/manager, which to labor; among their concerns is that while the technological demands of work require greater education, training, intelligence, and mental effort, workers and society find conditions of industrial and office labor increasingly unstable, unsatisfactory, and characterized by mindlessness, bureaucratization, and alienation. Braverman, for example, challenged modern social science accounts of the organization of modern industry that "accept all that is real as necessary, all that exists as inevitable, and thus, the present mode of production as eternal," by providing a concrete and historically specific analysis-of the relationship between technology and machinery on the one hand, and social relations on the other (Braverman, 1974, pp. 16-17). Shaiken argues that technological development- is a consequence of both social and economic choice, and that the workplace is shaped by the interaction of workers, managers, and technology (Shaiken, 1986, p. 13). Management, whose goals shape the design and implementation of technology in the workplace, seeks to control production as well as the activities of workers. Technology, and particularly information technology, may be designed in a way that leads to reduced skills and levels L. Carol Christopher of worker input and decision making, as well as tighter control over work and workers' activities. The result is boring, stressful work. While managers seek higher productivity from such a system, its actual costs may be lowered productivity and quality, since a system that reduces human input cannot benefit from human skill, talent, experience or creativity. The effects of management decisions, however, may be _mediated by a broad range of factors, such as the nature of the industry and technology design, as well as the presence and strategies of organized labor. For example,- in the newsroom, it isn't just journalists who lose: Newspaper management and readers alike lose the benefits of synergy that comes from creative, often casual, human interactions. Zuboff argues that working with computers-offers a new way of knowing the world: Computerized work is more mediated than older technologiesworkers must deal with an increasingly symbolic, or abstract, world, relying more heavily on their computers and less on their own sentient experience of the world (see Zuboff, 1988, p. 75). Depending on the choices made about the deployment of information technology, workers may gain communicative and coordinating skills and intellective competence, or they may be pushed "further into the sentient but mute terrain of fatigue and nervous exhaustion" (Zuboff, p. 123). Since the early 1970s, newsrooms have seen the introduction of VDTs (video display terminals), pagination, libraries, on-line and database research, remote transmission and delivery, photo desks (enhanced color capabilities and digital photo transmission and storage) and photo editing capabilities not to mention the new on-line onslaught. Many newspapers,